BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA January 16, 2020 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw

But the play, as a whole, is a joyful piece of work. There is abundant vigour in it, and the best things come with such force, and the worst have so

much spirit, and the thing Contents: marches on with such gaiety Introduction 1 Brief Author 2 that you cannot resist it, nor Biography Some context for 3 do you want to. It is a great Pygmalion A brief analysis of 4 joke, and it comes off. Pygmalion

Themes in 5-6 [1914 review published in The Telegraph] Pygmalion

Notes 7

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Brief Author Biography

were dismal failures, widely century, beginning with Caesar rejected by publishers. Shaw and Cleopatra (written in 1898), soon turned his attention to Shaw's writing came into its own, politics and the activities of the the product of a mature writer British intelligentsia, joining the hitting on all cylinders. In 1903, Fabian Society in 1884. The Shaw wrote Man and Superman, Fabian Society was a socialist whose third act, "Don Juan in group whose goal was nothing Hell," achieved a status larger short of the transformation of than the play itself and is often England through a more vibrant staged as a separate play entirely. political and intellectual base, and While Shaw would write plays Shaw became heavily involved, for the next 50 years, the plays even editing a famous tract the written in the 20 years after Man group published (Fabian Essays in and Superman would become Socialism, 1889). foundational plays in his oeuvre. Works such as Major The year after he joined the Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Fabian Society, Shaw landed some Dilemma (1906), Pygmalion (1912) writing work in the form of book , Androcles and the Lion (1912) reviews and art, music and and Saint Joan (1923) all firmly Playwright George Bernard Shaw theater criticism, and in 1895 he established Shaw as a leading was born in Dublin, Ireland, on was brought aboard the Saturday dramatist of his time. In 1925, July 26, 1856. The third child, Review as its theater critic. It was Shaw was awarded the Nobel Shaw's early education took the at this point that Shaw began Prize in Literature. form of tutoring sessions provided writing plays of his own. by his clerical uncle. Pygmalion, one of Shaw's most Shaw's first plays were published famous plays, was adapted to the Early on, Shaw explored the in volumes titled "Plays big screen in 1938, earning Shaw worlds of the arts (music, art, Unpleasant" (containing Widowers an Academy Award for writing literature) under his mother's ' Houses, The Philanderer and Mrs. the screenplay. Pygmalion went guidance and through regular Warren's Profession) and "Plays on to further fame when it was visits to the National Gallery of Pleasant" (which had Arms and the adapted into a musical and Ireland. In 1872, Shaw's mother Man, Candida, The Man of became a hit, first on the left her husband and took Shaw's Destiny and You Never Can Tell). Broadway stage (1956) with Rex two sisters to London, and four The plays were filled with what Harrison and Julie Andrews, and years later Shaw followed (his would become Shaw's signature later on the screen (1964) with younger sister had died in the wit, accompanied by healthy Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. meantime), deciding to become a doses of social criticism, which writer. Shaw struggled financially, stemmed from his Fabian Society Shaw died in 1950 at age 94 while and his mother essentially leanings. These plays would not working on yet another play. supported him while he spent go on to be his best remembered, or those for which [https://www.biography.com/ time in the British Museum writer/george-bernard-shaw] reading room, working on his first he had high regard, but they laid novels. the groundwork for the oversized career to come. Unfortunately, despite the time he spent writing them, his novels Toward the end of the 19th

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Some context for Pygmalion

Born in Dublin in 1856 to a so as to convince the public that agitating for homosexual middle-class Protestant family the play was no less important liberation, might or might not bearing pretensions to nobility than the novel. In that way, he inform the way that Higgins (Shaw's embarrassing alcoholic created the conditions for later would rather focus his passions father claimed to be descended playwrights to write seriously on literature or science than on from Macduff, the slayer of for the theater. women. That Higgins was a Macbeth), George Bernard Shaw representation of Pygmalion, the Of all of Shaw's grew to become what some character from the famous story plays, Pygmalion is without the consider the second greatest of Ovid's Metamorphoses who is doubt the most beloved and English playwright, behind only the very embodiment of male popularly received, if not the Shakespeare. Others most love for the female form, makes most significant in literary certainly disagree with such an Higgins sexual disinterest all the terms. Several film versions have assessment, but few question more compelling. Shaw is too been made of the play, and it Shaw's immense talent or the consummate a performer and has even been adapted into a play's that talent produced. Shaw too smooth in his self- musical. In fact, writing the died at the age of 94, a presentation for us to neatly screenplay for the film version hypochondriac, socialist, anti- dissect his sexual background; of 1938 helped Shaw to become vaccinationist, semi-feminist these lean biographical facts, the first and only man ever to vegetarian who believed in the however, do support the belief win the much coveted Double: Life Force and only wore wool. that Shaw would have an interest the Nobel Prize for literature He left behind him a truly in exploding the typical and an Academy Award. Shaw massive corpus of work including structures of standard fairy tales. wrote the part of Eliza about 60 plays, 5 novels, 3 in Pygmalion for the famous [https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/ volumes of music criticism, 4 actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, pygmalion/context/] volumes of dance and theatrical with whom Shaw was having a criticism, and heaps of social prominent affair at the time that commentary, political theory, had set all of London abuzz. The and voluminous correspondence. aborted romance between And this list does not include the Professor Higgins and Eliza opinions that Shaw could always Doolittle reflects Shaw's own be counted on to hold about any love life, which was always topic, and which this flamboyant peppered with enamored and public figure was always most beautiful women, with whom he willing to share. Shaw's most flirted outrageously but with lasting contribution is no doubt whom he almost never had any his plays, and it has been said further relations. For example, that "a day never passes without he had a long marriage to a performance of some Shaw Charlotte Payne-Townsend in play being given somewhere in which it is well known that he the world." One of Shaw's never touched her once. The greatest contributions as a fact that Shaw was quietly a modern dramatist is in member of the British Society establishing drama as serious for the Study of Sex Psychology, literature, negotiating publication an organization whose core deals for his highly popular plays members were young men

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A brief analysis of Pygmalion

Pygmalion derives its name from conveniently, hanging instead in of speech, not only Pygmalion's the famous story in unconventional ambiguity. Next, Galatea, but Pygmalion himself. Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which he mires the story in the sordid More powerful than Pygmalion, Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and mundane whenever he gets on top of building up his and shameful lives of the women a chance. Wherever he can, the creations, Shaw can take them of his era, decides to live alone characters are seen to be down as well by showing their and unmarried. With wondrous belabored by the trivial details of faults and foibles. In this way, it is art, he creates a beautiful statue life like napkins and neckties, and the playwright alone, and not more perfect than any living of how one is going to find a taxi some divine will, who breathes woman. The more he looks upon on a rainy night. These noisome life into his characters. While her, the more deeply he falls in details keep the story grounded Ovid's Pygmalion may be said to love with her, until he wishes that and decidedly less romantic. have idolized his Galatea, Shaw's she were more than a statue. Finally, and most significantly, relentless and humorous honesty This statue is Galatea. Lovesick, Shaw challenges the possibly humanizes these archetypes, and Pygmalion goes to the temple of insidious assumptions that come in the process brings drama and the goddess Venus and prays that with the Pygmalion myth, forcing art itself to a more she give him a lover like his us to ask the following: Is the contemporarily relevant and statue; Venus is touched by his male artist the absolute and human level. love and brings Galatea to life. perfect being who has the power [https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/ When Pygmalion returns from to create woman in the image of pygmalion/section6/] Venus' temple and kisses his his desires? Is the woman statue, he is delighted to find that necessarily the inferior subject she is warm and soft to the touch who sees her lover as her sky? --"The maiden felt the kisses, Can there only ever be sexual/ blushed and, lifting her timid eyes romantic relations between a up to the light, saw the sky and man and a woman? Does beauty her lover at the same reflect virtue? Does the artist time" (Frank Justus Miller, trans.). love his creation, or merely the art that brought that creation Myths such as this are fine into being? enough when studied through the lens of centuries and the buffer of Famous for writing "talky" plays translations and editions, but in which barely anything other what happens when one tries to than witty repartee takes center translate such an allegory into stage (plays that the most Victorian England? That is just prominent critics of his day what George Bernard Shaw does called non-plays), Shaw finds in his version of the Pygmalion in Pygmalion a way to turn the myth. In doing so, he exposes the talk into action, by hinging the inadequacy of myth and of fairy tale outcome of the flower romance in several ways. For girl on precisely how she talks. In one, he deliberately twists the this way, he draws our attention myth so that the play does not to his own art, and to his ability conclude as euphorically or to create, through the medium

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Themes in Pygmalion

Appearances and Reality Change and Transformation class, Liza no longer knows who she is. Pygmalion examines this theme The transformation of Liza is, of primarily through the character of course, central to the plot and Language and Meaning Liza, and the issue of personal theme of Pygmalion. The In an age of growing identity (as perceived by oneself importance at first appears to standardization of what was or by others). Social roles in the rest in the power Higgins known as "the Queen's English," Victorian era were viewed as expresses by achieving this Pygmalion points to a much wider natural and largely fixed: there transformation. "But you have range of varieties of spoken was perceived to be something no idea," he says, "how frightfully English. Shaw believed inherently, fundamentally unique interesting it is to take a human characteristics of social identity about a noble versus an unskilled being and change her into a such as one's refinement of laborer and vice versa. Liza's quite different human being by speech were completely ability to fool society about her creating a new speech for her. subjective ones, as his play "real" identity raises questions It's filling up the deepest gulf that suggests. While Shaw himself about appearances. The separates class from class and hated poor speech and the importance of appearance and soul from soul." As the play varieties of dialect and vocabulary reality to the theme of Pygmalion unfolds, however, the focus could present obstructions to is suggested by Liza's famous shifts so that the effects of the conveying meaning, nevertheless observation: "You see, really and change upon Liza become the play suggests that the real truly, apart from the things central. The truly important richness of the English language is anyone can pick up (the dressing transformation Liza goes in the variety of individuals who and the proper way of speaking, through is not the adoption of speak it. As for the dialect or and so on), the difference refined speech and manners but vocabulary of any one English between a lady and a flower girl is the learning of independence variety, such as Cockney, its not how she behaves, but how and a sense of inner self-worth social value is determined in she's treated." that allows her to leave Higgins. Pygmalion completely by the Beauty Identity context in which it is assessed. While Liza's choice of words as a In Pygmalion, Shaw interrogates The indeterminacy of Cockney flower merchant would beauty as a subjective value. One's appearance and reality in be thought as absurd as her perception of beauty in another Pygmalion reveals the significant accent, they are later perceived person is shown to be a highly examination of identity in the by the mannered Eynsford Hill complex matter, dependent on a play. Shaw investigates conflicts family to be the latest trend, large number of (not always between differing perceptions of when they are thought to aesthetic) factors. Liza, it could be identity and depicts the end emanate from a person of noble argued, is the same person from result of Higgins's experiment as breeding. the beginning of the play to the a crisis of identity for Liza. Liza's end, but while she is virtually transformation is glorious but Sex Roles invisible to Freddy as a Cockney- painful, as it leaves her displaced Sex and gender have a great deal speaking flower merchant, he is between her former social to do with the dynamics between totally captivated by what he identity and a new one, which Liza and Higgins, including the perceives as her beauty and grace she has no income or other sexual tension between them that when she is presented to him as a resources to support. Not many audience members would lady of society. clearly belonging to a particular

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have liked to see fulfilled through proving herself capable of one a romantic union between them. type of transformation, also In Liza's difficult case, what are makes an important step defined as her options are clearly towards self-awareness and self- a limited subset of options realization, which for Shaw is the available to a woman. As Mrs. beginning of almost endless Higgins observes, after the possibilities for personal conclusion of the experiment Liza development. will have no income, only "the Wealth and Poverty manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own One of the many subjects under living." To this problem Higgins examination in Pygmalion is class can only awkwardly suggest consciousness, a concept first marriage to a rich man as a given name in 1887. Shaw's play, solution. Liza makes an astute like so many of his writings, observation about Higgins's examines both the realities of suggestion, focusing on the class and its subjective markers. limited options available to a The linguistic signals of social woman: "I sold flowers. I didn't identity, for example, are sell myself. Now you've made a simultaneously an issue of class. lady of me I'm not fit to sell Economic issues are central to anything else." Liza's crisis at the conclusion of Higgins's experiment, for she Ubermensch (“Superman”) lacks the means to maintain the Shaw's belief in the Life Force and standard of living he and the possibility of human evolution Pickering enjoy. Doolittle's on an individual or social level led unforeseen rise into the middle him to believe also in the class similarly allows Shaw to possibility of the Superman, a examine wealth and poverty. realized individual living to the Though Doolittle fears the fullest extent of his or her workhouse, he's not happy with capacity. (The naming of the his new class identity either; concept is credited to the Shaw injects humor through influential German philosopher Doolittle's surprising (according Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, to traditional class values) 1844-1900). Shaw addresses the distaste for his new status. topic explicitly in his play Man [http://armytage.net/updata/enot and Superman and in many other es-pygmalion-guide.pdf] works, but he also approaches it in Pygmalion. Higgins, for example, represents the height of scientific achievement in his field, though he may be too flawed as an individual to continue evolving towards a superhuman level. Liza,

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